Diagnostic efficacy of the preoperative lymphoscintigraphy, Ga‐67 scintigraphy and computed tomography for detection of lymph node metastasis in cases with ovarian or endometrial carcinoma

BACKGROUND To investigate the diagnostic efficacy of preoperative lymphoscintigraphy (LS), Ga-67 scintigraphy (GS) and computed tomography (CT) for detection of lymph node metastasis in patients with endometrial or ovarian carcinoma. METHODS The results of preoperative LS, GS and CT used to detect lymph node metastasis were compared to the postoperative histopathological results of lymph node dissection materials of a total of 37 patients, including 16 patients with endometrial and 21 patients with ovarian carcinomas. The diagnostic efficacy of these methods for detecting lymph node metastasis were calculated. RESULTS When the results of all of the patients were taken into account, the preoperative LS, GS and CT were found to have sensitivities of 50%, 20% and 40% and specificities of 51.8%, 96.3%, and 92.6%, respectively, for detection of pelvic lymph node metastasis. The same methods had sensitivities of 27.3%, 27.3% and 72.7% and specificities of 88.5%, 88.5%, 84.6%, respectively, for detecting para-aortic lymph node metastasis in all patients. CONCLUSION These data suggested that although LS, GS and CT had relatively high specificity, low sensitivity of these imaging methods precluded their routine preoperative use for diagnosis of lymph node metastasis of ovarian or endometrial carcinoma.